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Wanderer D
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An intriguing idea but a little too fast-paced. If the transformation had been more gradual and Twilight slowly succumbed to her new changeling instincts a la Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, that would have made for some truly terrifying reading and the overall impact would have been greater..
That said, this was nicely written and I did get a chill out of it. If you ever decide to expand upon it, I'd love to see what else you can come up with.
You did it again, D. Another great one.
Loved the implications in the end of the story! Certainly moved fast, didn't she?? Ha! 
This is definitely interesting. I'd actually be quite interested to see an interim of what happened after Twilight's realization, but before Celestia's arrival. ...Hmm. Might call for an interquel, perhaps? *laughs* Eh, regardless, another awesome read!
I love this, a lot. 
One thing, though?
Cool it with the ellipses. 
It was like, "Word... word... word..." and I get you wanted to show that they were speaking slowly, but there are other ways to do that. It gets frustrating after a while to see the same thing over and over again. 
But I truly do love the story. Brava! 
Ah, this was brilliant. The gentle ebb of resistance versus her new instincts as she progressed into her new species, all the foreshadowing with subtle mentions of what happened and is to come, combined with a unique concept really made this story great. Bravo sir, bravo~ 
I also feel it was rushed. There should be a paragraph of shocked protest right between "her horn had taken the jagged appearance of Chrysalis’ own" and “All of that... is it something you feel all the time?”
Other than that, this is a completely effective horror story. The pull of her vampiric hunger vs her love for her friends.
Great more stories I'm going to be tracking.......I'm going to be unable to get away from my Laptop at this rate with the hope of new updates.....OH WELL!
I agree with most that you might need to slow it down a bit, seems like you are racing to the end when it would be fun to see the details of each encounter as the other mane six were changed. Buuuuuttttt other than that pretty good story so I'll be waiting with baited breath -wonders if baiting my breath is suppose to help draw things in.......oh must get cookie bait I love those~- 
You know, in all sincerity, I don't think this ending is creepy at all. It's obvious that Twilight's been converting her friends and fellow ponies into changelings, but they don't seem to be mindless drones. In fact, the way the story was writen, I think they're probably quite content to be assimilated into a love-sharing collective. They're all still individuals, but they're united in a deep bond that isn't knowable for non-changelings. 
You've got another good one here, Wanderer. It did feel a little rushed in places, though I will give some of that to the fact that Chrysalis was clearly on her last legs due to her wounds, so of necessity she rushed Twilight's induction to the barest of essentials in explanation of how a Changeling functions. Actually, in the long run, that could very well be what keeps Twilight and her new hive from going the way of the old Swarm. Twilight's got an enormous store of willpower, and she's seen what can happen to a changeling who lets their instinct to feed on external love sources get the best of their intellect. (Of course, to her thinking now, I'm pretty sure that Friendship is not just Magic, it's Hive. And we all know that you can never have too many friends.
) The truly scary thought I have in all this is that it's entirely possible that the Elements of Harmony are likely to work even better for their new Changeling Bearers than they did for the old Pony versions.
Image: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/lolface_Queen_Chrysalis.png
HURRAY
awesome definitely creepy! while i did love it a lot, i do get that familiar feeling of: MOAR!!!
if you would continue this you could just have the next chapter be a "one week ago" and write about how she slowly converted the town. then you could make it into another awesome adventure/dark type story
These kind of stories are meant for you to want more. Those are the best kind -- you feel on edge and want so much more, it jars the imagination to go through all the crazy scenarios that can happen.
A sequel is what we want, but we don't need it. It wouldn't be what we had hoped for, even if it was triple AAA -- everypony needs something else from it.
Vampires... except love is a surprisingly more interesting thing to consume than blood. Poor Changeling though, their means to survive is difficult to accomplish, leaving them struggling to get their basic needs. I am surprised they aren't extinct yet.
EDIT: Actually, I take that back. Changelings could survive because of what that had happened to Twilight.
I feel like the dark/horror element was sort of taken away from because it kept going on and on after Twilight realized how she made the hive; leaving things hanging on a dark implication is always the best, and you sort of went for it...but like, over and over again, you know? First with the Mane six, then with Luna, and then with Celestia. A bit repetitive and draws out the dark too long, which takes away from the shock of it.
I'd actually hesitate to call this dark on the overall; I don't know what I'd call it, but it's more...sort of an unfortunate misunderstanding? I could see this all ultimately be turned around for the best if Celestia and Luna managed to get Twilight into a talky mood and they tried to work it all out. The changelings are depicted as a sentient, living race here, and thus have a right to existence; the problem is the drive which compels the queen to convert others, which it's not made clear to me in your story is an unmanageable psychological phenomenon so much as just new and compelling to Twilight. This could turn out to be a happy story about how the changeling race and the ponies made peace with one another in the end.
Changelings don't work like that, and if they did, why didn't Chrysalis do this in the first place? Not to mention that Twilight's mental fortitude is the strongest, and she held against Discord better than any pony.
You've got a thing with corrupting/changing Twilight, don't you?
I don't get Changeling's love feeding though.
As described, they benefit from loving, and being loved, only amongst changelings. Why do they need outside sources then? Are they selfsustaining, but outside love allows them to grow larger, thus bringing more collective 'love' into the hive? I'm guessing there's some sort of compulsion there.
>>839935 Um, really? That's kinda pretentious to say. How do you know that changelings don't work like that? Is it established in a book or official material that I might have missed? Or should I just subscribe to the "Changelings are a bunch of insects led by their Queen and cannot achieve sentience unless they are cut off from the rest" just because it's the fanon's preferred view on it? Also, the implication in the dialogue is that Chrysalis was planning to convert Canterlot just like Twi did to Ponyville. 
>>839949 That's the idea... they need to harvest love and then share it, but the Queen is compelled to make the hive larger.
>>839895 Well, I left it vague, but couldn't the question of how 'free' the others really are be raised? So far we have seen what Twilight wants Celly to see, but that doesn't mean that's what it is. Bottom line is, though, if I have to explain it I should probably edit it a bit
>>839814 Yes, yes she is.
>>839743 I think he would look scary...
>>838803 you caught it! I wasn't sure many would notice who Rarity was looking at. 
But does that mean they're friends still? Or is Rarity a servant now and Twilight just rationalizing that they are more? 
Their interest in taking over Equestria is explained by their source of nourishment being true love, and that Equestria has "more love than [they] have ever encountered." Like Windigoes, Changelings are 'emotion parasites' albeit they feed off of positive emotion instead of negative emotion.It's not like there information about them right from the horses mouth or anything. And it's not set in canon what happens in this story either. It's an interesting idea, but it's too fast paced and unlikely. A decent read, nonetheless.Changelings come from Western European folklore and legends, usually being classified as shape shifters. They are usually associated with trolls and faeries (fairies), and can easily take the shape of other beings, usually for their own benefit.
Changelings bear a resemblance to the mythical creatures of Celtic lore known as Pùca, especially Queen Chrysalis. In Irish mythology the Pùca were mischievous shape shifters whose preferred form was that of a black horse. The changelings are more directly based off of "Sinisteeds", dark, horse-like creatures who thrive on feeding off of love and emotion in the novel Gossamer by Lois Lowry.
But, you really seem to like the idea of corrupting Twilight, and she falls a little to easily here, and the situation is kinda easily fixable.
Their interest in taking over Equestria is explained by their source of nourishment being true love, [...] The changelings are more directly based off of "Sinisteeds", dark, horse-like creatures who thrive on feeding off of love and emotion in the novel Gossamer by Lois Lowry.
Fair enough, I could argue though that, again, what they do with that 'love' in their society is open to interpretation given how little we know about them. And while yes, you and >>838665 both argue in favor of Twilight's mental fortitude...
Image: http://fim.413chan.net/fic/src/132304406635-TwilightPsycho6.pngWe are talking about the same Twilight, right?
And while she did whistand Discords influence... the fact is that the approach is different here. With Discord, she was fighting against becoming her opposite. While, here, she fights a losing battle against something that she cannot ultimately perceive as 'evil', which is love... she's also overwhelmed by feeling all of that thrown into her at the same time, while Discord's influence was intentionally slow and could be even seen as mental torture. Here she experiences an amazing amount of love force-fed into her as her body is transformed into a being that biologically speaking needs that. The moment she talked about love as 'food' she was already lost. Everything else was just rationalizing to try and figure out what to do.
And yes, I like corrupting Twilight...
>>840058 That insane Twilight thing was from herself, not an outside source. There are completely different, and it only happened once (or twice, if you count the parasprite incident), and it was because of her fear of disappointing Celestia, which I'm sure becoming a changeling would do that very same thing.
That Discord thing might of been different, but it shows that if something from a creature that's completely unmatched can be reversed, then so could this, and I doubt Twilight would betray everything and everyone she's ever cared about.
Changelings feed on true love, not friendship love, so I doubt Twilight would suddenly become like that so quickly. If that was the case, then Chrysalis would've feed from her own people, or just blended in the crowd as some random background pony.
Even in this story, this can be fixed really easily, and I doubt changelings need to feed only on love to survive (and is there only means of sustenance), since they would be dead otherwise. If anything, love just powers them up.
The stories good, though, don't get me wrong, and I understand creative liberties, I'm just using canon reasoning.
And yes, I like corrupting Twilight...Yeah... not creepy at all.
Image: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_rainbowderp_flip.png
“You don’t have to lose them...”
“What do you mean?”
“As long as you don’t let your love for them consume you, A-as the centuries pass, y- you’ll want to make your hive bigger–”
I am not quite sure how to take this - On one hoof, it's like a warning against, but it also is open enough to be the suggestion that she should.
Also: "All through the hive, one by one a thousand changelings stopped what they were doing and looked at each other before smiling softly or nodding in goodbye." 
That Discord thing might of been different, but it shows that if something from a creature that's completely unmatched can be reversed, then so could this, and I doubt Twilight would betray everything and everyone she's ever cared about.
True, however here, Twilight is not looking at it as betrayal... she sees it as a way to keep her friends and her life in Ponyville and that rationalization is fed by a biological need to proliferate her (new) race. This way she keeps all she loves and feeds on it and returns it to a certain extent. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it is well within the rationalization capabilities of a "turned" Twilight.
Changelings feed on true love, not friendship love, so I doubt Twilight would suddenly become like that so quickly. If that was the case, then Chrysalis would've feed from her own people, or just blended in the crowd as some random background pony.
That's also a liberty I'm taking: I'm feeding them of love in the general term, with 'True' Love being the most desirable dish, if you will. And while Chrysalis could have certainly fed that way, it would not fulfill her biological need to make more changelings. I also think in terms of personality, Twilight is more likely to act in a logical manner than Chrysalis, who has proved to be unreliable at best when it comes to thinking things through...
Even in this story, this can be fixed really easily, and I doubt changelings need to feed only on love to survive (and is there only means of sustenance), since they would be dead otherwise. If anything, love just powers them up.
Fixed if caught early enough? Possibly, maybe by the use of the Elements of Harmony, but Twilight's mentality has changed to the point of it being illogical to use it against herself and return to the previous status-quo. After all, she's not harming anypony right? She's just... keeping them with her, and letting them love her.
And even if Celly could use the Elements on them (which is questionable) she would need to know what had happened. 
The stories good, though, don't get me wrong, and I understand creative liberties, I'm just using canon reasoning.
Nah, don't worry about it. If I couldn't take creative criticism and dialogue I would be doing something else... like... singing in a boy band or something. 
Now that's a scary thought!
Nah, don't worry about it. If I couldn't take creative criticism and dialogue I would be doing something else... like... singing in a boy band or something.Don't even kid about that! That's... that's unspeakable!Now that's a scary thought!
Image: http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/58def2baf8c4ce914b15350e8af59cf0/188893%20-%20animated%20pinkie_pie%20reaction_image%20scootaloo%20twilight_sparkle.gif
I love it. Very well done.
Ponyville is now a hive that contains the Elements of Harmony to fuel it as well as the love of a rural and friendly town, soon to be joined by not just one, but likely all three of the princesses and the entire staff and citizens of Canterlot.
What a pleasant win-win for everyone.
Lets see the Griffins try to make war on Equestria now
I've got 16 other stories in my que, why do you disrupt my schedule so!!
Pretty please?
Image: http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/162/f/5/time_for_change_by_internationaltck-d534u27.jpghttp://internationaltck.deviantart.com/
This is close enough. Go to this guy's gallery and you can find vector's of the Mane Six as changelings.
Also, nice corruption story Wanderer. I thought it was nicely written, but rushed. I do kind of hope you write a sequel to it if you feel like it.
"No, Ponyville, you ARE the changelings." And then Ponyville was the changelings.
I loved this. Like many others, I want to know what happens next, but this was clearly written to leave what happens next to the reader's imagination instead of a sequel. But I wouldn't say no to a sequel anyways, no matter what direction it went. :P
Because changelings need love from non-changelings to survive, but Twilight is turning everypony into changelings. Soon there will be no more ponies in Equestria that can give them love, and then they have to leave and go somewhere else to get more. This will lead to an invasion of that country, just like what Chrysalis was doing...or perhaps not, and the changelings will just stealthily infiltrate and gather love. Until of course, Twilight's need to grow her hive and share the love they are taking will result in her transforming all the beings of that country into changelings...
The continuing transformation of others into changelings is completely unsustainable. It is inevitable, eventually the changelings will either be defeated and killed - like what happened to Chrysalis - or they will starve to death after converting to many creatures into changelings, leaving none left to be fed on to fuel the ever-growing swarm.
No matter which happens, everyone dies.
Image: https://s.deviantart.com/th/fs71/PRE/i/2012/113/a/d/queen_chrysalis_by_pinkanon-d4xcj1q.jpg
Dear Fausticorn!Thank you so MUCH!I have been trying to find a picture of one of the Mane 6 as changelings, but never could.It's hard to find on dA and even Derpibooru.Thanks for this dude!And at least it's better than nothing =).
Again to Wander D, I still find this story really well done,one of your bests,even if it is a short story.
I'm sill a bit confused how changelings work in your world. Are they capable of existing without attacking or transforming people? Can the hive exist with the Queen loving the lower caste and vice-versa? It seemed unclear on that. But I still desperately want to see more of this story, or something in its vein. Liked and favourited!
Image: https://s.deviantart.com/th/fs70/f/2012/161/d/8/chrysalis________by_tomdantherock-d5302eo.gifLove doesn't kill me!
My looks did
I'm hot aren't I?
So Twilight changed to her memory of her unicorn form without purposely thinking about?
I LOVE how the changelings goof their roles, but Twilight thinks the CMC accidentally used a mind swap spell.
Interesting look at Chrysalis and her swarm. Basically showing them as Blue And Orange morality. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality Rather than a plague.
And you give LOGIC for why the changelings would be a community rather than lone wolves with their need to harvest love.
Also you do a fantastic job of Twilight still being the intelligent and rational Twilight, and not instantly being an evil overlord, but only being able to resist her new base instincts the same way someone else can only resist breathing for so long. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WarmBloodBagsAreEverywhere
It's interesting her conversion instinct triggered around Spike but not her six friends.
I'm worried for poor Spike when he wakes up still in that thing.
On the one hand you an appreciate what Chrysalis wanted, she didn't want her species to die out, and with it their identity, the emotional cache they had built up, and their memory. On the other she had kidnapped somepony, then hijacked their life, and forced them into a role they'd have to follow weather they liked it or not! And likely an evil that had been visited upon herself once! And that of her every last one of her children!
I wonder if she resisted her instincts until she went mad and did it unconsciously or embraced the chance for power.
Chrysalis was right: She didn’t need to lose her friends. She just needed to create a hive.
Can't resist her own base instincts.
I wish you hadn't skipped her doing the same to RD, mostly cause RD would have been CONSCIOUS for the whole thing, and she'd have had to look into RD's eyes for betraying her! It would have been a VERY emotional scene!
Also, I'd have liked to see how the 'vector' spread, and how long it took to convert victims, and what their thoughts were when converted, how much of their old egos remained, etc.
Celestia chuckled as she made her way to her student, nodding at the bowing but busy ponies that stopped to greet her.
Still bowing to the sun goddess I see.
"She stopped to let the Cutie Mark Crusaders scuttle past her, little Sweetie Belle’s horn glowing a soft green as she levitated a pillow and chased behind Scootaloo and Apple Bloom."
Again. I'd have liked to see how this would have gone. Would they have been among the first? The last? Would they have been COAXED into it so they didn't cause trouble?
So is green the uniform color all changeling's magic has?
Given Twilight's admiring of Celestia, you think she'd have the swarm fly off after everypony was converted and leave a 'I'm sorry, love you, but can't stay here' for Celestia.
After all, they seem some ponies to feed off of.
Also, how long does conversion take? A good while since Celestia wasn't effected the first tiem.
It's the same fridge logic as Cupcakes, wouldn't somepony notice RD was missing?
I just want everything to be perfect today!”
That word. Whao boy. Not 'just perfect' eh?
she added, noting how the designer’s mane seemed somehow more lush than before, if that was even possible.
Self-image as she shape shifted.
And I find it a bit weird she converted effectively all of Ponyville in just one week. It certainly took longer than that with the town in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.
I really wish we had seen a lot more of Twilight's 'conquering' of Ponyville. That's my only real complain with this story. It might have ultimately turned monotone for some, even repetitive, but DANGIT! I LOVE THAT SORT OF THING!
And congratulation for having the artistic guts for having FOALS converted. Most artists have them take a trip to Mars or something when this sort of thing happens, or they explode, or die or something.
Also, I think Twilight would learn from Chrysalis REAL mistakes that trying to load over ponies and go up against the Alicorns was suicide unto itself.
There are exactly three things Luna loves: her sister, her night, and Pip (as a friend).
Really liked this story.
It is possible that a large enough hive would have enough collective love to be self-sustaining without external sources. If Chrysalis' hive had suffered huge losses from some calamity or calamities, they could very well have dropped below that number which was what prompted her to invade Equestria. So, if Twilight converted enough ponies, it wouldn't be necessary to further need external love sources. Of course, if this is not how it works, Twilight really is dooming everypony, especially her friends as they or their descendants will either be killed or starve.
In some ways I agree with you, especially if a large enough hive is self-sustaining. However, Twilight didn't give Spike a choice in the conversion and therefore probably didn't give the other ponies an informed choice (the informed part is key). If she gave everypony/dragon/whatever a choice and respected said choice, then it really wouldn't be so dark except for Chrysalis not giving Twilight an informed choice in the matter.
ETA: forgot something
My favorite line (look at my avatar).
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